Kissed by Shadows (14 page)

It was a startling thought.

Twelve

The long heat wave had broken. Pippa knelt on the window seat of her bedchamber taking deep breaths of the rain-washed air. The grass on the sweep of lawn was bright green again, the flowers had lifted their drought-stricken heads, and the leaves on the trees had a shine to them once more.

The terrace below her window was thronged with courtiers taking their morning gossipy constitutional. Very few had ventured onto the puddle-strewn gravel paths or the drenched lawns.

Pippa was still in her nightshift although it was already midmorning. She had slept late and awoken feeling sluggish and nauseated. She had slept late but not well, indeed she felt as if she had not really closed her eyes at all. A vague unease, a sense of apprehension dogged her. She had had a dream but in the bright light of day she couldn't remember anything about it, and yet she knew that it was the source of her unease.

Nausea rose unstoppable. “God's blood, Eve has something to answer for,” she muttered as she ran for the commode.

Martha tutted sympathetically and was ready with a dampened lavender-scented towel and a cup of water flavored with spearmint when her mistress finally rose from her knees.

Pippa rinsed out her mouth and washed her face. She felt better. She took the mug of warmed mead that Martha next gave her together with a piece of buttered barley bread and returned to the window seat.

She didn't hear the door to Stuart's chamber open until he spoke hesitantly from the doorway. Her body went rigid. She had not seen him even in public since she had discovered him with his lover two days earlier. She had not questioned his absence, merely been thankful for it.

“I give you good morning, Pippa.”

Pippa didn't turn from the window. She didn't think she could bear to look at him and still be silent . . . still manage not to hurl her agonized outrage at him. Lionel's lovemaking had given her back herself, but had done nothing to assuage her hurt and fury at the man who had so used her. And yet she knew she must say nothing. She couldn't imagine what would happen if she confronted Stuart. What would he do, what
could
he do? It was quite simply an unimaginable situation. She knew that Stuart would never forgive her; guilt would not let him forgive her for discovering his secret. And since she would never be able to forgive him for such a betrayal whether she confronted him or not, she was trapped into silence. The charade of this marriage had to be preserved for public consumption.

“You have been away from court these last two days?” she asked distantly.

“The queen asked me to visit her estates in Essex,” he said. “She has a mind to visit Woodham Walter with the king next month. Philip expressed an interest in hunting the forest down there.”

“I see. Is the entire court to remove there?” Still she did not turn from her view of the terrace below her window although her eyes took in nothing.

“That has not as yet been decided.”

Stuart stood awkwardly in the door. He felt a flash of anger as if Pippa were to blame for making him feel awkward and ill at ease in her company. “Why are you not yet dressed? The morning audience will take place in less than an hour.”

“I am not feeling well this morning,” she returned. “The queen I'm sure will excuse me since she is in the same happy condition . . . although she informs me that she doesn't suffer from my particular symptom.”

Stuart had heard her earlier vomiting and winced at the sarcasm he sensed in her voice. She was accusing him of causing the miseries of her pregnancy, where surely she should be rejoicing in a condition that a normal woman would embrace with satisfaction. In the circumstances he was helpless either to challenge or sympathize.

“You wish me to make your excuses?”

“If you please.”

“Very well, madam.” He bowed to her back and retreated into his own chamber.

Pippa gazed down at the terrace below waiting for the definitive click of the latch that told her Stuart had truly left her.

“Will you return to bed, madam, or will you dress?”

She realized that Martha had been a silent audience to that encounter. “I will dress,” she said, turning away from the window. “But I will keep my chamber this morning.”

Stuart left his own chamber half an hour later, dressed with subdued elegance, an air of determined good humor on his handsome countenance, the coldness of his encounter with his wife resolutely dismissed. He had told Pippa the truth about his absence over the last two days, and the respite, brief though it had been, from the dreadful tension and humiliation of his deception had strengthened him.

Or so he thought until he came face-to-face with Lionel Ashton in the royal antechamber. One look at the man, when he turned and regarded Stuart with his air of contemptuous detachment, was sufficient to reduce Lord Nielson to the miserable wretch who had taken over his person.

“Lord Nielson, welcome back to court.” Ashton bowed, smiled. “Your errand was successful, I trust.”

“I bore the queen's messages, yes,” Stuart said stiffly. “If the king chooses to hunt in Essex he will find all prepared.”

Ashton nodded. His gaze roamed around the antechamber. “And your wife? Does she not accompany you this morning?”

Stuart felt himself flush; his fingers curled, the nails biting into his palms. “She keeps her chamber this morning.”

Ashton nodded again. He inspected his own hands with a slight frown as if he found something amiss, and said without looking up, “Pregnancy is hard on a woman. I don't believe I have congratulated you as yet, Nielson.”

Stuart's hand went to his sword hilt in an involuntary movement. He didn't think he could bear the contempt. And then his hand fell to his side. He had no choice but to endure.

“I have been asked to keep a close eye on your wife. You will not object, I trust, if I visit her in her chamber?” Ashton inclined his head in question.

“If my wife has no objection, how could I?” Stuart said through stiff lips.

“Indeed,” Ashton agreed with a faint smile. “I give you good morning, my lord.” He bowed and strolled away, leaving Stuart to gather the shreds of his dignity around him and enter the competitive, malicious, dangerous fray that was Queen Mary's presence chamber.

Lionel made his way swiftly to the Nielsons' apartments. No one would find anything untoward in his visiting Lady Nielson in her private chamber in the middle of the morning. Such ease of visiting among acquaintances was an accepted part of the court rituals. And besides, he had the husband's permission to pay his respects to the ailing wife.

He knocked on the door and the maid opened it.

“Is Lady Nielson receiving visitors?”

“One minute, sir. Who shall I say?”

“Mr. Ashton.”

Martha left the door open a fraction. She returned in a second saying, “My lady will receive you, sir.” She held the door wide.

“My thanks.” He stepped into the chamber.

“That will be all, Martha,” Pippa said, rising from a low chair by the empty hearth where she had been composing a letter to her sister.

“Mr. Ashton, this is an unexpected pleasure.” She smiled at him, trying to keep the warmth, the rush of excitement from her expression, until the maid had left the chamber.

He took her hands. They had not been alone since the morning among the grass cuttings. “This is not one of your good days,” he observed, assessing her washed-out countenance.

“It wasn't,” she replied. “Not so far. But it might be improving.”

Lightly he brushed the corner of her mouth with his own. “'Tis a beautiful morning. Not one to be spent within doors.”

“No,” she agreed, tightening her fingers around his. “What do you suggest?”

“A few hours on the river. Come to the kitchen water steps in a half hour.” He twisted a strand of her hair around his index finger and released it, smiling at the way the curl sprang tight again. “You will not be missed for a few hours.”

A slight frown crossed her eyes. “You sound very certain.”

He shrugged easily. “I met your husband. He said you were keeping to your chamber. No one will be looking for you.”

The frown deepened but she said, “No, I suppose that is so.” It was unlikely that Stuart would return after their earlier unsatisfactory meeting. And, besides, she thought, he had abdicated all rights to information about her movements, let alone to a say in them. The defiant anger was pointless, she knew, but it made her feel better.

Lionel regretted bringing Stuart's presence between them since it so clearly distressed her, and yet he could see no way to avoid it. Pippa's husband could not be ignored. “In half an hour,” he repeated, touching her lips with his finger. “Bring a cloak. The air is cooler this morning.”

The door closed behind him and Pippa ran both hands through her hair, pushing it away from her face, compulsively tucking unruly strands behind her ears as if it would order her world. But her world, reality, seemed to have broken the bounds of order. She was going to spend the next few hours with her lover. On the river, making love, losing herself in the immediacy of desire and passion and lust. She wanted nothing else. Her heart skipped, her thighs tightened, her loins ached at the knowledge.

But she couldn't ignore the other present, the other reality. She carried her husband's child. At some point there would have to be an accounting.

But in the meantime there was to be a morning on the river, and the chamber robe she was wearing would not do at all.

“Martha, bring me the red damask with the gold embroidered underskirt, if you please.”

Pippa took up her hairbrush and pulled it through her hair, enjoying the way it sprang in luxuriant glossy curls from beneath the bristles. Pregnancy had some good effects it seemed. Her hair color was deeper, its texture thicker and richer. Her ordinarily minuscule bosom was growing more noticeable too. Maybe, when the nausea had passed, she could begin to enjoy her condition. The thought lifted her spirits even further.

Dressed to her satisfaction, her hair looped at her neck in a caul of fine silver filigree, a cloak of black taffeta cast carelessly around her shoulders, she left the chamber with her customary quick, light step.

Lionel waited at the kitchen water steps among the bustle of servants unloading barges laden with produce, game, sides of beef and mutton from the royal estates. The smell of blood and rotting vegetables crushed in the bottom of panniers and crates tinged the freshness of the morning air. Feeding the court was a massive and complex operation. The royal cellarman was screaming, red-faced, at a man who had brought him a cask of malmsey instead of the port he had ordered.

Lionel's stillness, his air of detachment in the midst of this near-chaos, seemed to render him invisible. He saw Pippa when she was some yards away and covertly watched her approach. She seemed almost to be skipping, her cloak flying out behind her with the speed of her progress.

He realized that it had been many weeks since he'd seen the lighthearted side of Lady Nielson. He'd first met her when he'd arrived at Southampton with the king on his wedding journey. Pippa and her husband had been part of the welcoming party who were to accompany the Spanish king and his court to Canterbury for the ceremony.

She had made little impression on him then, because she was not important to his own purposes. He knew only what was common knowledge, that she remained utterly loyal to Elizabeth and that the queen as a result held her at court as a virtual prisoner, regarding her with grave disfavor. But he had noticed how quick she was, both in speech and movements, and he'd guessed at the streak of rebellion lurking beneath the apparently compliant facade.

It was this, he decided, that earned her Mary's continued lack of favor. Mary was generally generous with her forgiveness and, since Stuart Nielson was one of her most devoted courtiers, it would have been quite natural for the queen to embrace the penitent Pippa on her release. But Pippa was not penitent. Oh, she was courteous, docile, but there was a look in those hazel eyes, a set to the mouth and jaw, even a quality to her thin angular nose that radiated defiance. And her tongue was swift and sharp, her wit laced with irony.

It was not surprising therefore that when Ruy Gomez and Simon Renard had hatched their little plot for ensuring the Spanish succession, Mary, after a long day spent on her knees in prayer, had not only agreed to the plan but had acquiesced almost with enthusiasm in their choice of the woman who was to receive the king's dubious gift.

The gift came with considerable penalty, a fact that Lionel suspected had sweetened the pill for the queen. A woman she suspected of disloyalty would be the only real sufferer. The husband's sins against the church were so heinous that he was entitled to no consideration, indeed in Mary's eyes he could consider himself fortunate that his punishment was not ultimate. She embraced her husband's game and played it with the consummate skill at deception that had kept her alive for close to forty years, and that had eventually brought her the throne.

Lionel walked to meet Pippa before her lively, colorful arrival could draw attention. He was unaware of the darkness of his expression. He didn't know how to prevent her suffering, and until the first night he had carried her unconscious body back to her husband he had not given it a second thought. He had seen only his task. He must thwart Philip's plans and he would do that by being a trusted partner in those plans. If the woman conceived and was brought to bed he would see to it that the baby did not fulfill the role Philip and his advisors intended. Its mother was merely incidental, to be dealt with in whatever way was necessary. The future of his country depended upon it.